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This volume investigates how mothers can understand parenting as spiritual practice, and what this practice means for theological scholarship. An intergenerational and intercultural group of mother-scholars explores these questions that arise at the intersection of motherhood studies, religious practice, pastoral care, and theology through engaging and accessible essays. Essays include both narrative and theological elements, as authors draw on personal reflection, interviews, and/or sociological studies to write about the theological implications of parenting practice, rethink key concepts in theology, and contribute to a more robust account of parenting as spiritual practice from various theological perspectives. The volume both challenges oppressive, religious images of self-sacrificing motherhood and considers the spiritual dimensions of mothering that contribute to women´s empowerment and well-being. It also deepens practical and systematic theologies to include concern for the embodied and everyday challenges and joys of motherhood as it is experienced and practiced in diverse contexts of privilege and marginalization.

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Introduction

The Race of It All: Conversations between A Mother and Her Son

Inspired Mothering

And the "Hall Was Burned to the Ground": Mothers and Theological Body Knowledge

Transgressive Mothering As Wo/men´s Human Rights Work... Holiness and the Human

On Good Mothering: Practicing Solidarity in the Midst of the Breastfeeding Wars

Motherhood as Self-Giving and Self-Receiving Relationship

A Mother-Whore Is Still a Mother: Revelation 17-18 and African American Motherhood

Miscarriage Matters, Stillbirth´s Significance, and The Tree of Many Breasts

Awake My Soul: Mothering Myself toward Recovery

Oceans of Love and Turbulent Seas: Mothering an Anxious Child and the Spirituality of Ambiguity

Parenting Elders: Finitude, Gratitude, and Grace

Motherhood and The (In)vulnerability of the Imago Dei : Being Human In the Mystical-Political Cloud of Impossibility

In Justice and Love: the Christian life in a home with mental health needs

"Courage Unparalleled Opened Her Utterly:" A Practical Theodicy

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